Sarah Zheng reports: Hong Kong’s summer of protests looks very different from inside and outside the Great Firewall that encircles the internet in mainland China.

On Monday morning, the top trending topic on Weibo, China’s highly regulated version of Twitter, featured a Shanghai tourist who was “harassed and beaten” during a massive pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong on Sunday evening. It racked up 520 million views. A prominent video on the topic from Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily showed the man, surnamed Ma, telling reporters about protesters accosting and accusing him of photographing their faces, under the tagline: “Is this the ‘safety’ that rioters are talking about?”

But in Hong Kong, where there is unfettered access to the internet, the focus was on the peaceful Sunday demonstrations, which organisers said drew 1.7 million people despite heavy rain. On LIHKG, the online forum where Hong Kong protesters discuss and organise their action, one hot topic celebrated Weibo posts on Ma that mentioned a taboo – Beijing’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. The topic cheered the “first time China’s Weibo allowed public discussion of June 4th”, referencing posts about Photoshopped images of Ma in a shirt calling for justice over the crackdown.

An estimated 1.7 million people took to the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday. Photo: Robert Ng

This shield was used by French Police when they entered the Bataclan Theater to rescue the victims and stop the carnage. Despite taking withering fire, the police continued charging the threats until they were shot dead or detonated their suicide belts.

Hundreds of the hard-left protesters, and a group calling themselves ‘The Revolutionary Youth’ gathered in the Swiss capital of Bern to call for German-style mass immigration and a change in asylum policy.

Liam Deacon reports: A pro-migrant protest turned violent today, with Swiss police forced to use water cannon and rubber bullets to quell the self-described ‘anti-fascists’ who violated law by demonstrating on an election day.

Hundreds of the hard-left protesters, and a group calling themselves ‘The Revolutionary Youth’ gathered in the Swiss capital of Bern to call for German-style mass immigration and a change in asylum policy. The group started to violently clash with local police at around 2pm.

Members of the illegal left-wing organization the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front have broken into a Turkish prosecutor’s office and taken him hostage

Yael Klein writes: The prosecutor, Mehmet Selim Kiraz, was targeted by the organization because he represented the state in the sensitive case of a young man’s death during anti-government protests in 2013. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was the Turkish prime minister at the time of the protests, exercised a very strict policy against the protestors. The young man was killed after the police used excessive force against the demonstrators, and the organization has taken Kiraz hostage as an act of protest against Erdogan.

The Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front has issued a message in the social media, threatening to execute the prosecutor by 3:36 pm (local time) if its demands are not answered. The members of the organization demand that the police officers who caused the death of the young man in the 2013 protests confess to killing him on live television. Read the rest of this entry »

As photos of protesters using umbrellas to protect themselves against pepper spray and tear gas spread, the movement took on the name “Umbrella Revolution,” which also began appearing as a hashtag on Twitter and in Western media. Read the rest of this entry »

For Mail Online,Julian Robinson reports: Indigenous people armed with bows and arrows have clashed with mounted police armed with tear gas, helmets and riot shields – just weeks before the World Cup begins.

Protestors wearing traditional tribal dress squared up to police in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia – and one officer ended up being shot in the leg with an arrow.

The violent scenes unfolded next to the Mane Garrincha National Stadium, amid a climate of increasing civil disobedience by groups looking to disrupt the event saying it will cost too much for a developing nation.

Stand off: Mounted police, armed with tear gas and riot helmets, confront native Brazilians, brandishing bows and arrows, to stop them from marching towards the Mane Garrincha stadium during a demonstration in Brasilia

In clashes broadcast live on television, riot police fired tear gas into small pockets of protesters as they approached Brasilia’s new stadium that will host Cup matches. Read the rest of this entry »